


Caught Grinning

by MrMcLemons



Category: The Matrix (Movies)
Genre: Aboard the Caduceus, Agent Smith is feral, Alternate Universe, Based off Smith’s infamous zoo monologue, Canon Ship and Canon Captain with a made up crew, Explosions, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, First Movie / Alternate First Movie, No Neo, One Rotten Lemon!, Pinned, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reader is terrified, Scent Kink, Shooting, Spoilers: everyone smells bad BUT the reader, Straddling, Violence, fighting for control, general mayhem, tackling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:29:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26884417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrMcLemons/pseuds/MrMcLemons
Summary: Agent Smith finds you. Now he won’t let you go.
Relationships: Agent Smith (The Matrix)/Original Female Character(s), Agent Smith (The Matrix)/Reader
Comments: 17
Kudos: 41





	1. Fool Me Once, Shame on Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is a part of one big wip one shot, but I’m posting to see if anyone is interested. I have way more written but I need some motivation tbh. Gonna get real kinky AND hopefully stay in character. Comment for more Feral Agent Smith.

_ The lamplight flickers out on the long street between Kensington Way and East Fifth when you get the call. _

_ “Bat, we’re getting you out of there. Now. Crow lost sight of Yancy and some Agents caught his scent. We got him out, but Limbo and you are still up for grabs. The good news is that all of the Agents are on the other side of town, and if you lay low, you won’t get caught.” _

_ “Where’s my nearest exit?” _

_ “That’s the better news - I’ve got one for you on Jameson, old bar named Mikey’s. Run down and nearly no one’s there,” The Operator—Quake—pauses, whispering, “but I’ve heard they have a nice musical selection.” _

_ You can’t hide the smile from your voice. “Just what I like to hear.” _

_ “One song.” Quake says in a quick murmur. “That’s it.“ _

_ You throw the Mercedes in drive, “That’s all I can ask for.” _

_ “I’m sticking my neck out for you here. If Tirant finds out...” _

_ “I won’t tell if you don’t.” _

* * *

The phone is ringing, and as the tune dies out you smack the glass of the juke box, kissing the finger-stained surface in a brief, solemn goodbye.

“Till next time, Mister Sanatra,” You whisper lovingly before pushing off to backpedal towards the sound of escape. You salute, “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

Your smile is wide, and as you turn mid-step towards the phone, about to finish quoting the line from  _ Romeo and Juliet _ , you collide with something solid. No—someone solid.

“Sorry! Excuse me, sir,” you say, laughing breathlessly. You glance up— _ damn, nice jaw _ . Instead you smirk, “Love the glasses.”

The phone rings

** wait **

You stop mid-step and turn, almost colliding with the man again as you realize— “Shit.”

Not a man. An  _ Agent _ .

You almost stumble backwards to where the wall meets the corner but the strong grip on your forearm won’t allow it. When had he grabbed you?

How had he  _ found  _ you?

“Someone’s on the phone for me,” you say lamely, like that’ll make him let you go.

He smiles wide, full of faintly yellowish teeth that remind you of a shark. The lights of the hole in the wall bar are a mix of soft green, blue, and purple. Combined with the ambience of a low-light atmosphere, the sharp suit and slim build are almost completely lost in the haze of your sight.

But his  _ face _ , you can see his face very clearly; it’s painted in a harsh clash of lines and color that doesn’t fit, and the light refracted off the glasses is so sharp it almost feels like a tangible weapon. You think despite the Agent’s inhumanity that if his glasses were removed his eyes would be glazed and feral—almost human.

“You won’t be taking any phone calls tonight, Ms. Burner.” His words are spoken softly and precisely. A gentle poison that enters your bloodstream and makes your entire body freeze up. How many people have died hearing the timbre of this voice?

You’re trapped between a rock and a hard place. Figuratively and literally. No one is looking, Limbo has most likely escaped the Matrix already, and every other person is too occupied to notice the two bodies crowded into the corner by the jukebox.

_ They’ll notice when he shoots me. _

The phone rings and your throat tightens. You’re in a deadlock. You don’t move, you don’t breathe. He doesn’t have to breathe, but he could’ve pulled a gun on you already.

Why hasn’t he?

Almost as if he reads your mind, his grip tightens and your whole body tenses up at the powerful, bone crushing grip. You squeak at the way your fingers go numb and skin creaks with the sudden pressure.

Right. Doesn’t need a gun if he could kill you with his bare hands.

But he’s still not saying anything. He just persistently stares, and what you can’t see in his eyes you infer from other parts of his face—the way his jaw tightens as he clenches it, the way his brows furrow, and, most tellingly, the way his lips curl in a snarl.

The phone rings twice more, then stops. Its absence blares in your ears like rattling spikes.

You feel your heartbeat increase, mouth drying as you stand stock still. He’s angry. Very fucking angry. Why aren’t you dead yet?

Tugging at your arm again but finding steadfast resistance, you panic. “Give me a five second head start.” He seems surprised by your statement. His face slackens and appears far less furious than before, so you take advantage and babble in face of his hesitancy. “Okay, ten seconds.”

The hand on your arm clenches so tightly you think you feel your joints pop in your wrist and fingers. It’s a warning. You try to stifle the whimper at the numbness that jolts up your arm.

You want to look at your hand to ensure it’s still attached since you can’t feel it, but you can only stare—utterly horrified—as the Agent reaches towards his face.

The movement is unhurried and precise, filled with an unusual amount of grace that you usually don’t associate with the jerky and robotic movements of his kind. His fingers gently grasp the frames and pull it down. You watch the simple action, practically mesmerized at the fluidity of which it’s performed.

You don’t see where he puts the glasses, you’re too busy looking at his eyes. At first they seem pale, a sort of dull shade of blue that is blank and inexpressive. Your lips part as they roam your face, accusatory and serrated—you can feel them shift, like a knife is tracing the edges of your skin until you feel them rest on your chapped mouth. You gulp, trying not to run your tongue over the dry skin.

Thinking. Fucking think. How do I get out of here?

The lights pass over his face, and—

_**oh, ** _

you were wrong to think his eyes were a pale hue. It was a disservice. They were electric. Dark. Glistening like layered shards of ice, all obscenely vivid and dangerous. A shiver that you cant hide races up your body, and you’re sure he must’ve felt it because something flashes in his irises. You notice that despite the dark atmosphere his pupils are still pinpoints, and its the only reminder you have that he’s not human.

The Agent leans in, and it feels like all of the air that exists in that space between you is suctioned out. Sweat rolls down your arms and dampens your hairline as you renew the struggles to escape, but he just squeezes and deflects your struggles as if you’re batting at him like a child.

As he moves forward, his knee grazes your thigh until its resting in the space between them and you’re grabbing back at him not to fall, both wanting to get away but being unable to stand solidly without the Agent’s support. Your fist wrinkles in the waist of his suit— _ soft material _ , you think, panicking—and the only indication he notices is a short squeeze to your arm that he immediately lessens.

You whimper, “What are you—“

A sound comes out of the Agent’s mouth that you don’t know how to process, something caught between a hiss, a whirr, and a growl—definitely _not_ fucking human.

Out of the corner of your eye you see his hand catch the light, rising towards you. Something snaps and your paralyzing fear is swept away with adrenaline as you realize  _ he’s going to fucking strangle me. _

The free hand reaches for your gun strapped on your opposite waist, and you hope that the shield of dark and cluttering light will dried your movements, but just as you grab the handle and click off the safety you’re slammed back into the wall. The fingers tangled in the holster burn as they’re smashed, and your entire body aches with the sudden, forceful movement to the point where it echoes in your ears.

A groan tapers from your mouth, and in a last ditch effort you kick hard, grappling for the gun again despite the protest in your hand. He still hasn’t released your arm, but wherever your knee meets is steel, and he only exhales lightly whereas your body tightens in pain.

Pressing your lips together, you try to ward off the sting of tears as you face the burning inferno in his eyes. The brow is still drawn sharply, and the pupils remain tight circles, but you can see his teeth clench together like he’s frustrated.

“None of that, Ms. Burner,” he whispers harshly, easily pulling the gun from your injured grip and dropping it to the floor.

Your leg comes up again—an honest knee-jerk reaction to the sound—but this time its met with his thigh sliding between your legs,  too close, and now your toes can hardly brush the ground. You’re practically suspended on the Agent’s weight, and your free hand, pained as it may be, immediately tries to push the leg down.

The Agent doesn’t understand humanity, or circumstance of desire—it can’t process the effect of touch and sensation, and therefore it cannot possible decode or understand the implication of this position.

Breath coming in pants, you feel your blood race in panicked spurts all the way past your stomach and into your groin. It’s a subtle heat that feels more intense than it should in your adrenaline induced hysteria, but everything is spiraling out of control because Agents don’t do this. They  ~~ kill ~~ . End of story.

The knowledge that you haven’t had sex on the Caduceus in months doesn’t help, or that your spank bank is running out of juicy material, nor does the fact that you find the Agent attractive, or that he doesn’t understand  _ any of this at all . _

You’re pressing your toes into the thin molding that trails the wall for purchase, but your floundering only really serves to create more friction and the Agent seems tired of it all. This time his hand comes quickly to your face, grasps you jaw and presses your head to the side so you can only see him faintly if you strain your eyes hard enough to the side. The grasp itself is awkward and not painful, like he’s never touched anyone before other than to maim or dominate, and though its not gentle in any way it does feel intimate. Controlling but also curious.

More thoughts race through your mind behind the fog of adrenaline and confusion.

_ Is he malfunctioning? _

The hand leaves your face and immediately your jaw aches, but the pinky and ring finger remain pressed harshly against your cheek. Your mouth dries at the directive and domineering touch—only two fingers and your neck pinches if you even try and push against the force of it.

Before, the flashing colored lights were revealing, even if menacing. However, now you can hardly see him at all; only the slight refraction of light in the too-large iris of his glassy eyes.

Another digit trails down your temple, digging uncomfortably into the skin of your brow and tracking the rolling sweat. He’s sneering—you can see that much, but there’s still an angry looking wrinkle in his brow that reaches to his eyes. No. It’s  _ confusion _ .  Curiosity, even—far more dangerous.

The finger that collected your dripping nerves rubbed against the thumb, like he’d never touched sweat before and was assessing it’s viscosity. The action was unsettlingly robotic, almost scientific.

The rise of his knee and thigh between your own is still constant, and you grapple with your cramping fingers to push it away while also struggling against minimal leeway of your straining neck.

He seems unfazed by your floundering. “I don’t understand,” he snarls, chest vibrating with the guttural murmur.

The lack of understanding is certainly mutual.

Grated breath heaves between his lips, and you can see the way his face twists with raw and sinful emotion.

“Why don’t you—“

~~_** BANG! ** _ ~~

It rips through the atmosphere of the bar, the reverb drowning out screams and shouts. The colored lights are overlapped with the spray of blood, but your feet return to the floor that jolts up your entire body even as the fresh corpse collapses against you.

You see the skin of the Agent flicker out with blue flashes to the face of the bartender as it hits the floor. Breathing hard, you bow for your gun and rise into another hand, ears ringing uncontrollably.

“—to go now! That was a fucking Agent!” The voice is more familiar and the tail end of the sentence blows through your haze like a knife in the fog.

Despite your eyes being wide as saucers you barely even get a good look at Limbo. The first goal here is, as always, survival. “Where’s the nearest exit?”

“Bout two blocks away.”

The Agents don’t catch up with you both again. In less than five minutes Limbo and you are out of the Matrix, and you try not to think of what had happened anymore.


	2. Fool Me Twice, Shame on You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You’re forced to re-enter the Matrix too soon after your unfortunate run in with Agent Smith, and it appears your luck has run out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, deleted literally all of my writing off my iPad on accident and this work is the only one that survived. Only a couple more parts.
> 
> Feed me comments to keep me going please. Fun stuff starts next chapter ;))

“So, are you not going to talk about how you got away from an Agent and didn’t get your head ripped off?”

Should’ve known it wouldn’t work that way. There’s no avoiding it. Limbo saw you and the Agent and in some way obviously so did Quake.

You’ve been avoiding questions for the most part. You didn’t have the time to thank Limbo for saving your ass, but understanding the situation seemed vital if you truly wished to issue a genuine apology.  _Hey, thanks for saving me from an Agent who had me pinned up on the wall like that. Oh, hasn’t happened to you, yet? Weird. _

Tirant had let you off the hook, too. He hadn’t grilled you on the events of your fiasco in the Matrix two or so days ago (harder to keep track of time here). He seemed content to trust that your silence meant you were still functioning, and that seemed to be all that mattered.

Should’ve known Quake wouldn’t fit the same shape. Quake was truly the perfect Operator in every way, mostly because he can never shut the fuck up. You’re convinced that before he woke up he worked part-time as an infomercial sales phone operator.

Sighing, you move the slush on your plate around. “Got caught, got out, didn’t die.”

“Oh, that’s it, huh?” Quake shoulders you, smiling. “Jeez, Bat—if it were that easy I’m sure we would’ve broken everyone out of the Matrix by now.”

He sounds like he’s joking but its not very funny to you, because you really don’t know either. You don’t know how you got out. You don’t know why the Agent didn’t kill you on spot. Worse, even—you get sick at the thought of the position he had you in, even if it had crossed your mind a lot since.

It was the eyes, you think. You hadn’t seen any eyes that despicably haunting or human ever before, and it terrified you knowing that they just were an illusion, too—just a coded AI. His gaze still crawled about your skin at night, saturated in hatred and death. (You’ve given up on referring to the Agent as It, for you’ve never been imprinted with touch quite like that).

You try and shrug off the cold shiver that races down you spine as the phantom feeling returns, “Dunno what happened if I’m being honest. Think I got lucky, like he was malfunctioning or something.”

“Getting lucky then makes you numbero uno, the only one ever to get away alive. Best name for luck if I’ve ever heard the word.” Quake’s smile is disarmingly genuine, but you struggle to match it.

Tirant bursts through the door before you can respond,  _ all hands on deck, now!_, and you’re thrown in the tidal wave pushing to the top deck. You climb up and strap in, thinking sorely about how everyone’s luck runs out eventually.

“We’re all going in.” Tirant says, “Today Yancy wakes up. Operator, are you ready?”

“Born ready.” Quake fires back, headset curled over his ears.

“Good.” Tirant straps in beside you. “Crow, Limbo, Ryder, Bugs, Rapier—you’re with me. We‘re in then we’re out. Bat, you hang three blocks down. You have that distraction planned in case need you to draw out the Agents?”

You run your hands along the thighs to try and stop them from shaking. Hadn’t been this nervous since your first time going in again after waking up yourself.

“Been planning this one for a while,” You muster a smile, clearing your throat of any shakiness. “You know me.”

Tirant doesn’t smile, but the approval shines in his eyes. “And if you get caught, do what you do best.”

“Run,” you say, mustering your courage. “Like a bat out of hell.”

Quake drops you in an old office building in one of the musty janitor’s closets. You’re wearing aged coveralls with a random name tag that itch as they glitch into place. There’s a janitor’s cart ready with enough pipe bombs to level out the block, stacked together like a wedding cake from hell.

Pulling the cap over your ears, you leave the closet and make your way down the first corridor and take two lefts then a right to the basement.

> ** [ ACCESSING: ] :: ... STRUCTURAL LAYOUT ... L890 ... ‘METACORP’ **
> 
> **... LOCATION: BASEMENT, GARBAGE DISPOSAL **

Your speciality is disguising—jumping in and slipping out unnoticed—an untraceable phantom enlisted behind the scenes to twist the conventional plans out of practice. Crashing into the Matrix guns blazing isn’t something your skill prepared you for, even with numberless amounts of fighting injected into your cerebrum. The day you realized that you weren’t suited for the typical Matrix formula you’d gotten shot in the leg by an Agent and had to drive a Moped into a shut down T-Mobile store to get out alive.

The name you’d bore when they woke you up was Mimic. You were strategical, tricky, and slippery. Hard to track what lay in a mirror when the reflection was all but yourself. But the one thing that trumped your prowess was your natural affinity to flight, to always find some way out and survive for the new world you’d been sucked into. No one better than you at skating away with hell on your heels and heat on your soles.

_ Run. Like a bat out of hell. _

You’d never been caught since that first time. Been on hundreds of runs and hadn’t even been grazed by an Agent. Seems you’d gotten too cocky, and you’d nearly paid your life for it.

Never again.

You plant the bombs with ease. The wires twine around your fingers in a deadlier echo of knitting, scattered from the floor to the wall with nothing but red blue and green strands connecting them. When you had been asleep perhaps knitting had been more natural to you, but since then the animal inside you has shifted—grown claws and matted fur to adapt and survive.

Hardly did you remember things from before now, not with blue prints and training programs piled into you like a brand new identity. Most all of your memories were faded and far away, just hints of things you taste in the Matrix—some of them stuck better than others, and you clung to those things like Frank Sinatra as a lifeline for sanity.

They were small bits of a puzzle but they tied you altogether, and really you didn’t need most of the memories, either—they were riddled with apathy, fear, and easiness. Sometimes you missed the sleep and the food, but those were infinitesimal details in comparison to your actions. You were apart of some robust version of saving angels, and even with your wings dirtied and lyre clipped you still bore it with power.

And yet the Agent had thrown you back, pulled out a strip of yourself that had been vaulted away in the shackles of the Matrix—that person who was no longer you, drenched in fear and paralysis—helpless to shift the world around yourself.

It was a hard thing to shake. The reality of that return to a dead life had sunk its claws into you and clung hard. But that person didn’t know how to wire bombs or wreak havoc with utmost stealth. But now,  here , you faced no difficulty that would slow you down.

It takes less than five minutes to dump, wire, and connect the bombs. All of the lines lead to the pile of janitor’s clothes doused richly in gasoline. The smell is heavy, but while before it would’ve rung bells of terror now it was you who spilled it and will lead it to ignition.

A smile crawls onto your lips as you’re melting the door handle with a blow torch (a little touch you liked to add when you weren’t in a rush in case any sleepers wandered down). As the flames crackles and your finger tips itch with the burn, the muffled ring of your cell dances on the walls. Steadily, you watch as the cheap metal glows black and red, goo-ing in the direct heat until the lock is warped over.

Tossing the canister into the janitorial cart, you pull on a ball cap with flames etched into the side and pat your pockets.

> cigarettes  ✔
> 
> matches  ✔
> 
> phone...
> 
> _there it is. _

You pull out a cigarette, pressing the phone between your ear and shoulder. “Satan’s Firework Display, we put on one hell of a show! How can I help you today?”

“I need an order of chaos incarnate in, say, two minutes? Is that doable?” Quake replies in stride.

You scoff half-heartedly, “Doable? Sir, speed and chaos are my speciality.”

“Perfect. Pinging coordinates to an old church four blocks down on Avenue X. See you soon, Bat.” Then he hangs up.

You climb the stairs two at a time to the second floor, which has both a street entrance and the door that leads to the disposal. The door that leads outside is less than a hundred feet to your left and the disposal hatch is right on the wall by the stairs. You do this in a matter of practiced and unhurried seconds juggle the phone in your grip.

Time’s a lot faster here. It slides across your skin effortlessly, wasting away in shorter-than-seconds as you slip the cigarette into your mouth and pull the match on the wall. It scratches delicately and echos with a hiss, the subtle flame lighting the packed tobacco until embers and smoke curl at the tip.

Drag, inhale, exhale, repeat. Three iterations in and your head is drowned in a hazy halo of smoke the buzzes subtly in your veins like thrum of a gently plucked guitar string. Half the cigarette is wasted away and you dive for another harsh blow to nurse the flame when a hand swats through the fog.

“You’re not supposed to smoke in here.” It’s a middle-aged man with a whiny voice and tucked stomach, sleeves rolled up and sweat rolling on his fat upper lip. Hardly anyone else is supposed to be here given the clock, but that must also give him reasonable suspicion as to your out of place presence.

He makes a ballsy dive for your cigarette but even with the bees running in your limbs you swat back and make for one final drag.

“Sorry,” you say, the words coiled around tight rings of fume. “Can’t help it. Force of habit.”

Glancing at the tip, you see the ashen flames ready to spill—teetering on the edge of collapse onto the floor and under a boot. Such is not the fate for them today.

The man say something else that you don’t hear. You’re too busy looking at his ugly checkered green and yellow tie as you open the waste door and send the phone and cigarette sailing down—the latter for all intents and purposes serving today as your match, your trigger to meet the fuse.

Maybe he’s speaking more, maybe he’s not. You wish him a good rest of his day and make for the exit as you plug your ears with little wax balls. Steps outside the door a cacophonous thunder strikes, shakes the foundation of the Earth, and in a series of pops and screams and divine intervention the entire foundation comes crumbling to the ground. Though not as impressive in size or collapse, like the London bridge it falls down and down—crashing from pillar to pillar in flame and plume in on itself with clouds of dust huffing from the center.

True black smoke swells into the remaining, shaking structure of the building. It’s remaining floors stand on cracked legs, swaying slightly as the ringing echoes on and on, the world around it a compressed chamber for the destruction to bounce within. You watch, mostly untouched besides for dust on your boots, as the artifice folds in on itself like a house of cards from the gentle coaxing wind of your lips.

A block down you take out the wax, unwilling to squander time from lingering. Explosions are your favorite form of chaos because they are a beautiful reminder that the world is one ill-placed match away from implosion. But you’ve learned your lesson on dawdling where you’re not wanted, and besides—you’ve got a phone call to catch.

Sirens follow you to your destination, stripes of blaring color chasing in the opposite direction towards the tragedy forged by your hands. The horror fades as you push a spider web out of the way and climb through the window, the final cruiser rushing past in a distorted bubble of colors.

Cobblestone and wood smattered in dust lay in rubble and ruin around you, consumed by twisting weeds and vine of some hungry plant that has decided to make this once grand structure its home. Glass-stained windows throw fractals of painted light onto the ground, casting long shadows on over-turned pews and rusted candelabras.

Why the machines left places like this to rot when it was places like these where you and your fellow awakened often flocked to—abandoned structures smoked in dust, much like the world outside of the Matrix—would always confound you. 

The altar is mostly untouched, but while it was once draped in pristine fabric it is now hung with scraps of dirtied silk. The entire thing is adorned in ornaments of war and age, and you step quietly—always erring on the side of caution—in approach. A copy of the good book lays open, and you gently grasp the sodden and tired pages between your fingers, the question of where your phone call is nagging subtly at the back of your head.

The authorship of the work stunned you even now. Had the machine’s penned this book to placate the sleepers, or was it one of the true remaining artifacts from before their rule?

The words glittered dimly in pink light, half of the page torn and unreadable.

> _ But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all of these things that are going to take place, and to stand before... _

You let go of the paper. The word of God weighed light to you. You don’t remember if you’d believed in him before, but you knew now that he had perished. If God  _ had _ been mankind’s creator he had not saved you from it’s current captor. Somewhere in the collapse of buildings and showering bullets he had died along with that lost society and left the world on threads. Now machine-kind entertained the idea of God as a taunt, dangling him in the face of man because they knew any God that existed now was crafted in metal and wire.

Shifting away, the slide of gravel crunching underfoot, you hear a dual echo resound across the nave.

_ Run_ . Your mind screams.  ** Run ** .

You don’t. Tension coils in your limbs as you draw your pistol, swiveling and aiming in one practiced movement to face the direction of the sound. Blood pounds in your ears and the bitter taste of panic reeks the top of your mouth, sucking all of the air out and leaving it dry.

Shuffling in the dulling blend of light is a man shredded and rotting, much like the church around you. His eyes are human as they flicker to your gun and the click it made when you pulled the barrel back, but you’re frozen, too—making contact with the barrel of your gun.

Your jaw clenches, “Shit.”

Horror blossoms on his face. His mouth opens a millimeter before his face bends, another growing from the skin of his neck like a shimmering hydra.

This time you don’t hesitate. You shoot. The body that hits the ground is a rugged sleeper, but you’re sure that the Agent is not far behind.

You’re halfway up the stairs when you hear what sounds like brick breaking below and _where the fuck is that phone call?!_

Aged paintings of angels watch as you scramble for anything—phone, exit, doesn’t matter. At the end of one corridor a pillar leans suspiciously on a partially crumbled wall. You move under it and fire three rounds into the base and hear it crumble fully behind you.

How close is he? Will that slow him down?

No time to know.  _ Move_.

Your throat swells. The same faded halos and torn wings watch you pass, and you feel the dizzying sense of deja vu tickle on your tongue. It tastes like vomit.

The corridor behind you has changed. There’s only one exit—where you entered on the staircase—and one door, like you’ve been rewinded on a loop. You don’t hesitate. The door opens without protest, and it swings dangerously on the hinges— _ yes_, a phone.

You round the table with your gun drawn, eyes flickering restlessly between dull glare of the rotary to the rusted handle, rattling as it rebounds on the downswing to slam close. ”Quake. Come on. Give me my fucking call.” You murmur to yourself.

The door doesn’t get to close. The hand that catches it pushes it open gently. Then in walks the Agent.

He looks the same as last time—which, of course he does—but it still stands to faze you because it’s the  _ same exact fucking __Agent_.  You don’t know what that it means, what it implies—but it certainly feels like your luck has run out.

Your throat tightens.

Neither of you say anything for a moment. He stands in the closed doorway, shadowed in ugly yellow fluorescent light that makes the shadows on his face jagged and the green jump out of his tinted glasses. He is not holding a gun, though you have no doubt he could draw it in an instant.

“I don’t believe I had the chance to introduce myself when we previously met, Ms. Burner. My name is Smith. Agent Smith.” You frown at the ridiculously domestic sentence. It’s something you’d hear in the old world when you’d been a sleeper—maybe at an outing or a business meeting—but it’s so frankly ridiculous coming from  _ him _ that you actually utter out a laugh in disbelief.

He frowns at your response, and it makes your short bark of laughter trail off into a hollow echo.

He takes a step forwards and you teeter on your back foot, not wanting to retreat but anxious at the lessened space between you both. The phone on the table is a faraway thought, now.

Tension lances up your jaw and you clamp your teeth down so hard you think it rattles your brain. “One more step and I’ll shoot you again.” The words are quiet, but they’re sharp. At his sides you see his hands roll into fists, but you’re unwilling to move your eyes away from his face for long.

“We both know you won’t be able to hit me.” He steps forward again. “You and your fellow humans understand who has the power here, it’s why your immediate response when seeing us is to run. It’s something I’ve never understood—despite knowing your place is beneath us, that you are lesser than us in every manner, you still try and defy the natural order of the world.”

He takes another step. Your palms are so sweaty that your grip on the gun feels slick, like it’s slipping from your grasp. When you grip it tighter it only serves to make your arms ache with strain.

“The closer you get the more my chances of hitting you improve.” You fire back deftly, sweat dribbling down your neck.

The black rectangles disappear from his face with the measured swipe of his deft fingers, and you’re left again to face that icy stare. The gaze is heavy— personal . He looks at you with hunger, a sort of starved heat that feels individualistic like it’s reserved for you only.

When he tilts his head to the side it is quick but slight. Something thin and coiled dangles awkwardly over his right shoulder, refracting a dim lesion of light that dances on the collar of his coat. It’s an earpiece. At first an inconsequential detail, even as it disrupts the rest of his perfect appearance. But it’s not just that. It is his connection to the Matrix, to the mechanical monster that has enslaved all of humanity, then by proxy her as well.

And he’s disconnected from it.

You feel that ugly twist of nausea burn in your stomach, biting at your throat with acid that tastes like fire and decay all at once. You’re unsure how you’ve gotten here and what is happening, but you think you know where it’s leading: your inevitable demise.

“If you shoot me I will simply acquire a new body and find you again.” You make eye contact again and the weight of it shakes you, makes the corner of your eyes well with moisture. Maybe you flinch, maybe you see his pupil enlarge when you do. “It is inevitable. Wherever you run I will hunt you down and I will win.”

He steps again. You ponder the space between you now, even as you shuffle backwards to increase it. If you shoot before he gets too close he’ll dodge it then kill you; if you hesitate and he gets to close he’ll kill you before you can pull the trigger. You’ve only got one literal shot at survival and you are terrified you’re going to miss it.

Another step, except this time your panic forces you into action.

“I - I don’t understand,” you splutter out, voice sounding pathetically weak as it cracks. “What do you want?”  _Why am I not dead yet? _

Five feet of distance remains between you both now, and the number makes your head want to spin off your shoulders. And even from where you are standing you can make out the details of his eyes, still the same startling shade of blue but now they are... you don’t know how to put it into thought. They are hungry— ** no,** they are  _ feral_—pupils tiny pinpoints as they honed in on their prey. If the rest of his face hadn’t been poignantly removed of any other emotion, in that moment you may have forgotten that he wasn’t human. Perhaps that thought scares you more.

Smith blinks, and you see his jaw loosen like there are gears in his cheek as he speaks. “It is not about what I want, Ms. Burner. This is a matter of what I have earned.” He looks slyly over his shoulder, head tilted slightly as he turns back to her and gestures to the artifice that surrounds them. “It is my recompense, my exoneration from suffering, from humanity—compensation for the day when Zion falls and I am free to leave this rotting existence.” His voice twists with disgust, face screwed into a tight snarl. “It is the Matrix’s promise of an inevitable end, and it is  **_ mine_**.”

You think you’d only seen that sort expression on one other occasion, once upon a time when you were still a sleeper and a starving street-dog caught you outside a deli with a fresh slab of steak in a paper bag. Even all wrapped up the dog had approached with its ears drawn and teeth bared, and you could see that same look of possession peeling at it’s edges—a silent demand so unarguable and absolute because it is not based in reason. To that dog the laws of nature had dictated it could take what it wanted by any means, and you’d handed the steak over without question to it.

You know where you stood on the food chain then, and you know where you stand now.

(Think—you need time to  _ think_.)

He looks like he wants to make another move forward, but you hastily jerk your gun in your grip, hoping the sudden movement will halt him. You gulp, sweat collecting on the bow of your lip as it trembles lightly, “I still don’t understand...” you lick your lips, trying to keep the tears from your voice. “What does that have to do with me?”

Smith‘s head jerks to the side in a quick and unnatural movement, like he is trying to physically repel the claws of exasperation and disgust that have sunk into him. He recovers in the same instant, teeth bared and gritting together. “Humanity is a plague,” he seethes, “and like all plagues your kind stink with infection, rotting since you are born till you die. I cannot escape the stench until all of humanity is at mercy to the Matrix, and I feared for so long that I may never be rid of it. That I may be forced to endure this putrid fetor until the end of time without ever being set free from my chains.”

You stare, lips parted, magnetized by the absolutely mad wave of blue that has consumed his iris. Your heartbeat is growing louder by the second, yet somehow you hear every word in persistent clarity.

“I had  hoped ,” (he says this word as if he is pained, disappointed in some way but still apparently unfettered by it), “that my recompense would be more... well,  _ whole_, but—as pitiful as your kind are—you will do nicely.”

One more moment is time enough to think, to know in entirety that you are utterly fucked. You don’t know what he means, but you know that you are helpless to whatever it is, just another subject to a chain of command that you want no part of, that you have been trying to run from since you first woke up.

Now, this Agent Smith thinks he wants you. Thinks he’s earned you—been gifted you by the Matrix for some reason you don’t understand. You don’t want to understand, either. You want out. You want out and to never ever have to come back.

There is no silence in moments like these, only the sound of roaring blood, frantic beating hearts, and loud echoing thoughts. It’s all so loud that, for a second, you think you’ve just made it up—that  _ sound_.

You hold your breath and, some moments later, you hear it again—

the fucking phone is finally ringing.


End file.
